


Pursuit

by 00AwkwardPenguin00



Series: Dragon of the Yuyan [20]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula is her own warning, Episode: s02e08 The Chase, Gen, Major Character Injury, SHIT HITS THE FAN Y'ALL, Sokka is sleep deprived, Zuko is done with everyone's shit, the babies are fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00AwkwardPenguin00/pseuds/00AwkwardPenguin00
Summary: There's a scary-looking tank train chasing them.The kids are constantly fighting.Sokka just wants tosleep, for spirits' sake.
Relationships: Aang & Katara & Sokka & Toph & Zuko (Avatar), Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Azula & The Gaang (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & The Dangerous Ladies, The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Series: Dragon of the Yuyan [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582384
Comments: 288
Kudos: 3027





	Pursuit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts).



So it turns out that despite having a Literal Flying Bison that shouldn't be leaving any kind of trail to follow after half a night of flying, they haven’t lost the crazy train after all.

Sokka just wants to _sleep_ , damn it to La.

The train stops at the foot of the ridge leading up to their cliff, and opens in a burst of steam. Three people exit, riding on _giant fuck-off lizards_ , and Sokka feels Zuko stiffen beside him a split second before Katara says, "It's those three girls from Omashu!"

Toph boasts that they'd be able to take them, "four on three", and when he corrects her, makes a crack about not counting him because "no bending and all". Sokka blames his reaction on the sleep deprivation, but still makes a mental note to talk to the brat after a good night's sleep.

Zuko turns on his heel and books it for Appa the moment Sokka recommends retreat, Aang and Katara at his heels. Sokka can't blame the man, really––he still remembers the sheer gut churning terror he felt watching his best friend hit the floor as lightning flies over his head. Sokka follows, while Toph covers their backs by raising up some rock barriers. As soon as she lands in the saddle, Aang urges Appa into the air, and they fly away as fast as they can.

"I can't believe those girls followed us all the way from Omashu," Katara murmurs, hugging herself slightly.

"I still think we could've taken 'em," Toph grumbles.

"Are you kidding me?" Katara's voice goes shrill, and Sokka winces. Tui have mercy, he's so _tired_. "The crazy blue firebending and the flying daggers are bad enough, but the last time we saw them, one of those girls did something that took my bending away. That's scary."

The sun rises, and Sokka sings his lament to his lost night of sleep.

They crash land, Appa falling asleep in midair, and somehow this leads to Aang, Katara, and Toph all screaming at each other. Zuko breathes steam out his nose, and plants himself between Aang and Toph.

_**ENOUGH.**_ Zuko seems to double in size, taking a wide, aggressive stance, off-hand balled into a fist and held out to the side. He flings the sign at Aang and Katara like he's throwing one of his knives, golden eyes molten in a glare so hot Sokka's mildly surprised that Aang's arrow hasn't been seared off. To their credit, Aang and Katara shut up immediately, and even Toph seems a little intimidated.

_**This is not how a squad treats its members,**_ Zuko snaps out, every sign sharp and stiff in his anger. _**You are both out of line. You will apologize.**_

Aang immediately appears shamefaced, but Katara's face goes stormy and she opens her mouth. Sokka cringes and prepares for another tirade, but she doesn't even get a word out before Zuko turns the single most terrifying glare ever seen on a human face at her. Her jaw shuts with a click as her eyes widen.

The ex-soldier turns his back on them to face Toph, whose sightless eyes have gone very wide. Zuko glances at Sokka, silently asking for interpretation. Sokka nods.

_**Toph, part of being a team is helping each other out,**_ he begins, and Sokka speaks his buddy's words out loud. Absently, he reflects that the two " _tt"_ signs tapping together to form the sign for "rocks" fits Toph perfectly. _**We all know that you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, and nobody wants to take that away from you. But there's nothing wrong with relying on your squad to make things easier. Asking for help, and providing assistance when asked, doesn't mean that you can't do anything for yourself. You don't need to do everything on your own anymore.**_

Behind his back, Katara and Aang exchange wide-eyed glances, like they just realized something. Sokka's too tired to care.

"Toph, I'm sorry for yelling at you, and I'm sorry for not understanding," Aang says.

"I'm sorry too, Toph," Katara adds, looking on the verge of tears. "We're all exhausted, and still getting used to each other. Back home, everyone in the village helped out, because otherwise you'd freeze or starve to death. I should've realized that your experiences would be different, and I'm sorry for being so mean."

Toph shuffles a little in place, head bowed. "I'm sorry too," she says softly. "I've never had friends before, and I've never been allowed to really do anything for myself without having to sneak around. I'm not used to this, and I didn't understand what you wanted."

Zuko nods, a smug little smile on his face, and pats her shoulder. He turns and gives an approving nod to Aang and Katara, who beam at him.

"This is really touching and all, but what are we going to do about the tank train full of dangerous ladies chasing us?" Sokka drawls. All this mushiness in the air is giving him hives.

Aang smirks. That usually bodes _so well._

The next several hours are a blur of bison bathing, flying, fighting, and more flying. Katara is definitely right about the pink acrobat––even if he's not a bender, it is _creepy as all of La's trenches_ to suddenly have his limbs lose all sensation and turn into overdone noodles. He can only hope that she cracked a knuckle on his head before Toph trapped her feet in the ground. Zuko and the knife-thrower seemed to have been taking things personally; he's covered in cuts and his clothes are nearly shredded, and there's an uncharacteristic hardness around his eyes as he quickly collects his weapons after Toph traps her in rock as well.

They retrace Aang's trail, Appa groaning as he strains to stay in the air. The sun is sinking slowly as the ground below them gradually turns from green to brown. From what Sokka can remember of his maps of this area, they're on the southern edge of the Si Wong Desert.

The trail leads to a creepy abandoned town, and Sokka can see Aang taking a fighting stance against Crazy Blue Fire girl. Zuko goes dead white, and probably would have jumped out of the saddle to get between them if Sokka hadn’t grabbed his arm.

The moment Appa gets close enough to the ground to make getting out of the saddle a _not_ deadly prospect, Zuko bails, with Sokka and the girls on his heels. The girl turns as they approach, and Sokka feels his insides turn to ice at the smirk on her face.

“I was wondering when you’d show up, Zuzu,” she purrs.

Aang sounds half-delirious as he giggles _“Zuzu?”_ Toph and Katara snicker as well, but Sokka is way more concerned about the _familiarity_ of the nickname. How does this girl, who can only be the Princess Azula that Zuko’s so terrified of, know a lowly ex-soldier well enough to give him a _cutesy nickname?_

Zuko himself is a statue in his bending stance, never taking his eyes off of the girl.

“I have to say, it was definitely a surprise to find you in the company of the _Avatar_ of all people,” Azula continues, her smirk growing wider. “Everyone back home thinks you’re dead. Honestly, that probably would’ve been a smarter move—Dad’s going to _flip his shit_ when he finds out that you’re a traitor.” She looks positively gleeful at the thought.

“Zuko, what’s she talking about?” Katara asks.

“You mean they don’t _know?”_ Azula gasps in faux shock, her smirk growing into the kind of grin you see on a tiger-shark right before it takes a chomp out of your canoe. “Keeping secrets, _Zuzu?_ What would Mother think?”

She turns that terrifying grin on the rest of the team. “You all don’t see the _family resemblance?”_

There's a sinking feeling in Sokka's stomach that he can't blame on exhaustion or hunger. Zuko looks like his heart is breaking.

"What did he tell you?" Azula asks airily. "That he's just a common, disillusioned deserter from the Fire Nation Army? My brother is many things, but _common_ … that's the farthest from the truth."

_Brother?_

Zuko is a statue, skin paler than milk, making his scar stand out livid in his face. His hands shake.

Zuko has the steadiest hands Sokka's ever seen.

"I suppose it falls to me to make the introductions, then, since you seem to have forgotten all of your manners," Azula sighs, acting put-upon, until her smirk returns. "Avatar, assorted rabble, meet Zuko, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, _former_ Heir to the Caldera Throne of the Fire Nation. I'm his sister, Azula, daughter of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, _current_ Heir to the Caldera Throne of the Fire Nation."

Katara gasps, and Aang's eyes go very, very wide. Sokka can't seem to catch his breath.

"Well _shit_ ," Toph whispers.

Zuko takes a deep breath, and his hands stop shaking.

"Zuzu's always been useless, and Dad got rid of him _ages_ ago," Azula continues, nonchalantly examining her nails like she hasn't just turned everything they know about their friend on its head. "When the Avatar showed up and started making _problems_ , Father sent me to… resolve the issue. Imagine my surprise when my not-so-dead brother suddenly appears by the Avatar's side. It's a plot twist worthy of _Love Amongst the Dragons_ , wouldn't you say, Zuzu?"

Zuko says nothing.

Azula shrugs, sliding into her firebending stance. "It's about time you learned to hold your tongue, Zuzu. I suppose we'll just get down to it, then?"

Faster than a striking rat-viper, she sends a streak of blue fire like an arrow right at Aang, who quickly airbends out of the way.

The fight is a blur of elements that Sokka can barely keep track of. Despite having to be at least as sleep deprived as them, Azula holds their own, until they manage to corner her in the rubble of an old house. She studies the five of them, lips quirking.

“Well look at this,” she purrs, “enemies and traitors, working together.” She drops her bending stance and raises her hands. “I know when I’m beaten. You got me. A princess surrenders with honor.”

_It can’t be that easy,_ Sokka thinks deliriously. His body _hurts_ , and his fingertips still feel a little tingly even after whatever that pink circus freak did has worn off. His head is spinning from exhaustion and the revelation that his best friend, his brother warrior, isn’t who he said he is.

He can only blame these things for what happens next.

Faster than Sokka’s sluggish brain can track, Azula spins and fires a bolt of blue fire directly at him. Almost simultaneously, a pair of hands shove him out of the way. There’s a scream.

Something heavy and warm is lying on top of him, and Sokka blinks away the sweat to find Zuko sprawled over his chest, passed out cold. Azula has disappeared, and Katara, Aang, and Toph are crowded around them.

“What’d I miss?” He asks.

“Azula shot a fireblast at you, but Zuko pushed you out of the way,” Katara informs him, eyes wide.

“Fuck,” is all Sokka can say, and he and Aang carefully maneuver Zuko so that Katara can get a look at the damage. The bolt of blue fire that would’ve hit Sokka dead on and probably cooked his heart and lungs only burned a seriously gross-looking furrow across Zuko’s middle back.

Katara gloves her hands in glowing water and kneels down. Her face is a mask of concentration as the water spreads across the wound and glows brighter, and after a few moments the water falls away to reveal a less gross, but still nasty-looking wound.

“That’s all I can do for right now until I get some more water,” Katara sighs, corking her waterskin. “Aang, call Appa and get the first aid kit.”

Appa arrives in seconds, and Sokka pulls a twelfth wind from _somewhere_ ( _Tui and La_ he’s so fucking tired) and goes with Aang to get all their supplies.

It’s a combination of sheer exhaustion and shock that keeps the conversation minimal and the trip quick. They fly back to the river, load up their stuff, and fly back to the town. The girls haven’t moved except to position Zuko so that he’s sprawled facedown in Katara’s lap.

“How is he?” Aang asks, airbending himself to Katara’s side and causing Toph to jerk awake in surprise.

“Still out cold, but he’s not running a fever yet, so hopefully the wound isn’t infected,” Katara reports, and then nearly cracks her jaw around a giant yawn. Toph’s already asleep again.

“There’s a freshwater spring an hour or so south of here, we can camp there for a couple of days while Zuko recovers,” Sokka says. They load up onto Appa, who makes a weary, wobbly flight to the spring, which happens to be at the edge of a canyon.

Katara does another round of healing on Zuko’s wound with water from the spring before bandaging it up, and then they all pass out in a pile around him.

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have some ACTUAL divergence from episode canon! (For those who were wondering.)
> 
> Next time: **Exposure**
> 
> Wanna scream at me? C'mon over: [my Tumblr](https://awkwardpenguinproductions.tumblr.com)


End file.
